Dr. Callie Babbitt

What Ecology Can Teach Us About Sustainable Design

Video Description:

Callie asks the question, 'what ideas for sustainability can we adopt from perpetual environmental growth?' Her answer is introducing us to the idea of Industrial Ecology and how to translate the successes of ecosystems, into industrial systems.

Dr. Callie Babbitt is an Assistant Professor in the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at Rochester Institute of Technology, where she conducts research to proactively quantify and minimize environmental impacts of emerging technologies, like consumer electronics, nanomaterials, lithium-ion batteries, electric vehicles, and biofuels. She translates this research into courses at RIT in Sustainability, Architecture, and Industrial Design and into informal education programs at the K-12 level. Her collaboration with Rochester-area schools and Women in Engineering at RIT aims at increasing the number of female students who pursue science, engineering, and sustainability degrees and careers.

These efforts have been recognized by national and international academic and research communities. In 2013, Callie was awarded the prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program Award by the National Science Foundation, and in 2010, she received the AT&T Technology and Environment Award for her research and teaching efforts in sustainability.

Rochester is the first place Callie has lived where a snow shovel is necessary! Prior to coming to RIT, Callie was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Arizona State University. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Florida, and her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. More information on her research and outreach programs can be found at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Callie_Babbitt and at http://www.rit.edu/gis/public/Callie_Pages/. Callie’s perspectives on contemporary sustainability challenges can be found on Twitter @CallieBabbitt.